In order to keep your resolutions in 2019, consider these tips from Tim Bono, author of When Likes Aren’t Enough: A Crash Course in the Science of Happiness (Grand Central Life & Style, 2018) and lecturer in psychology at Washington University in St. Louis.

Find your motivation:Identify an important reason why you are resolving to change something in your life (e.g., “I’m doing it for my kids” or “This is to improve my overall health”). Research shows that reminding yourself of how your daily behaviors fit into big-picture goals will keep you motivated to stay on track.

Identify the challenges: Acknowledge potential barriers that might get in the way of implementing your goals (you might get lazy, tired, forget, or be lured away by another temptation), and then identify contingency plans for how you will respond in those moments: “When I start getting distracted in the middle of a big work project, I’ll give myself a quick break and then remind myself how rewarding it will feel to be finished with it.” Better yet, select environments that are free from distractions altogether. If you know you’re always tempted to surf the web while completing work, take your laptop to a place where there’s no wifi and leave your phone behind.

Make a routine: Set specific dates and times when you will incorporate the behavior—when you make a schedule for new behaviors you’d like to incorporate into your life, they require less psychological strength to implement. When you get in the habit of running every Tuesday and Thursday morning, the behavior becomes much easier to initiate because it simply becomes part of your routine, like brushing your teeth or taking the dog on a walk.

Treat yourself: Make your goals measurable, break them up into smaller sub-goals, and then reward yourself each time you hit a particular milestone. If your goal is to lose 50 pounds in the new year, treat yourself to a movie or other fun outing for each five pounds you lose.

The Sleep Gut Connection Part 2: Circadian Rhythms

A growing number of studies now suggest that the vast and diverse microbial ecosystem of the gut has its own daily rhythms. These microbiome rhythms appear to be deeply entwined with circadian rhythms, the 24 hour biological rhythms that regulate sleep and wake cycles in addition to many important physiological processes. Research suggests that both circadian and microbial rhythms are capable of influencing and disrupting the other, with consequences for both health and sleep.

According to research, the rhythms of gut microbes are affected by what and when we eat. A study using mice found that when they ate a healthy diet, they generated more beneficial gut microbes, and that the collective activity of microbial life in the gut followed a daily — or diurnal — rhythm. That rhythm in turn supported circadian rhythms in the animal. Mice that were fed a high-fat, stereotypically “Western” diet, on the other hand, produced less optimal microbial life. The gut microbes of these mice did not adhere to a daily rhythm themselves, and also sent signals that disrupted circadian rhythms. These mice gained weight and became obese, while the mice that ate healthfully did not.

Scientists bred a third group of mice without any gut microbes at all. Because they lacked a gut microbiome, there were no bacteria to send signals to the rest of their bodies. Circadian disruption occurred in these mice, but they did not gain weight or suffer metabolic disruption, even when fed the high-fat diet.

This suggests a couple of important conclusions. First, microbial activity is key to normal circadian function and, therefore to sleep. Second, that the microbiome is a key player along with diet in the regulation of weight and metabolism.

Research in humans has returned similar results. The human microbiome appears to follow daily rhythms influenced by timing of eating and the types of foods consumed, and to exert effects over circadian rhythms. Research has also found that the relationship between these different biological rhythms works both ways. Scientists have discovered that disruptions to circadian rhythms — the kind that occurs through jet lag, whether through actual travel or from “social” jet lag — disrupts microbial rhythms and the health of the microbial ecosystem. People who experience these changes to microbial rhythms as a result of circadian disruption suffer metabolic imbalance, glucose intolerance, and weight gain, according to research.

We’ve known for some time about the relationship of sleep, circadian rhythms, and metabolic health. Disrupted sleep and misaligned circadian rhythms have been strongly tied to higher rates of obesity, and to metabolic disorders including type 2 diabetes. This emerging knowledge of the microbiome and its relationship to circadian function may in time deliver to us a deeper understanding of how health is influenced by sleep and circadian activity.

Prebiotics: What They Are, What They Do, and Where You Can Find Them

You’ve probably heard of probiotics, living microorganisms that support a healthy digestive tract. Eating them, or having them inside your gut, can help your digestive system function more efficiently and may contribute to a healthier immune system, among other health benefits.

But have you heard of prebiotics? According to the official definition, a prebiotic is any substance used by microorganisms inside the body that confers health benefits. Translation: prebiotics are beneficial microbes’ food. While researchers are still learning about their full potential to boost overall health or even treat disease, one thing is for certain—adding more prebiotics to your diet can give you a happier gut.

How prebiotics work

Most prebiotics are types of dietary fiber, which is a kind of carbohydrate that human enzymes can’t digest. Not every fiber is a prebiotic, however, because there are two categories of dietary fiber: soluble fiber, which is fermented by gut bacteria, and insoluble fiber, which is not fermented. The soluble fibers that are metabolized by beneficial gut microbes are considered prebiotics. Inside your gut, prebiotics stimulate beneficial gut microbes to grow, improving gut health—and other areas of health, too.

Some prebiotics come from sources besides food and impact parts of the body beyond the gastrointestinal tract, but most of the ones we know about are found in food.

While it’s no longer on the menu for us adults, breast milk contains oligosaccharides, a prebiotic that has been found to increase the population of healthy bifidobacteria and discourage the growth of pathogens in babies’ guts. In fact, several types of infant formula are now supplemented with oligosaccharide prebiotics.

What are the major health benefits of prebiotics?

Recent research has found that prebiotics may help prevent and treat Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, lower cholesterol, and positively impact metabolism. Researchers have also found that a healthy gut microbiome fed by prebiotics has positive effects on bone density and strength.

A 2017 study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that children who tried prebiotics felt more satisfied after a meal, which could help children with obesity regulate their appetites. A 2017 study at the University of Colorado published in Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience was the first research to demonstrate that a prebiotic diet provides protection from stress and positively impacts sleep.

Prebiotics represent an exciting new area of scientific research, and many organizations are funding projects to study how they work, what they can do, and how they might be used to prevent or treat disease.

What do we still need to learn about prebiotics?

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is funding new research on prebiotics that may include investigations into how prebiotics could be used to help manage inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), or other conditions. Other organizations are funding research on new microbiome-based therapies, methods for analyzing the effects of prebiotics on gastrointestinal tract microbiota, and microbiome-based strategies for the prevention of lifestyle-related chronic diseases.

How can I use prebiotics to improve my health?

Fruits, vegetables, and whole grains contain prebiotics, so your healthcare provider’s usual advice about including a variety of fruits, veggies, and grains in your diet is certainly sound. Eating plenty of fiber-rich foods will also help you take in prebiotics, as well as vitamins and minerals. If you’re following the dietary guidelines for fiber intake, you’d want to eat 25 grams of fiber for every 2,000 calories you consume each day. The bonus is that by eating healthy, plant-based, fiber-rich foods, you’ll gain other health benefits, too.

Scientists investigating the relationship between sleep and the microbiome are increasingly finding a dynamic connection between gut health and brain health. The microbial ecosystem may affect sleep and sleep-related physiological functions in a variety of ways, including altering the body’s sleep-wake cycle and affecting the hormones that regulate sleep and wakefulness. The quality of our sleep, in turn, may affect the health and diversity of our microbiome.

There’s constant interplay between the gut and the brain, which means that a disturbance in either can influence sleep. The intestinal microbiome actually promotes the release of many of the neurotransmitters — including dopamine, serotonin, and GABA — that help to regulate mood and promote sleep.

Studies show a strong connection between imbalance of gut microbes and stress, anxiety, and depression, which in turn can trigger or exacerbate sleep disruptions.

Research also links gut health to pain perception. An unhealthy microbiome appears to increase sensitivity to visceral pain, which then can make falling asleep and staying asleep much more difficult.

Put very simply: our gut affects how well we sleep, and sleep affects the health of our gut. When you improve one, you improve both, which makes for a much healthier – and better rested – you.

Just as an imbalanced gut can affect sleep, unhealthy sleep patterns can disrupt the microbiome, as in the common sleep disorder, obstructive sleep apnea. In one study, scientists put mice through a pattern of disrupted breathing that mimicked the effects of OSA. They found that the mice that lived with periods of OSA-like breathing for six weeks showed significant changes to the diversity and makeup of their microbiota.

Gut health also has a significant connection to hormones that affect sleep. Melatonin, the “darkness hormone”, is essential to sleep and a healthy sleep-wake cycle. Melatonin is actually produced in the gut as well as the brain, and evidence suggests intestinal melatonin may operate on a different cyclical rhythm than the pineal melatonin generated in the brain.

Additionally, cortisol is critical to the sleep-wake cycle. This hormone is central to the body’s stress and inflammatory response, and exerts an effect on gut permeability and microbial diversity. Rising levels of cortisol very early in the day help to promote alertness, focus and energy. Changes to cortisol that occur within the gut-brain axis are likely to have an effect on sleep.

Put very simply: our gut affects how well we sleep, and sleep affects the health of our gut. When you improve one, you improve both, which makes for a much healthier – and better rested – you.

Is a Ketogenic Diet right for me?

The ketogenic diet has rocketed into the mainstream in recent years, helping individuals amplify physical energy, sharpen mental focus and mobilise body fat; all thanks to tweaking metabolism as we know it.

Energy 101

Normally, your body is fuelled by breaking down carbohydrates into their simplest form, known as glucose. This glucose is then taken up by the cells throughout your body, and burned to create the energy that keeps all of your systems functioning optimally throughout the day. Whilst the body can burn all macronutrients (carbohydrates, fats and proteins) for energy, carbohydrates are the easiest for your body to breakdown and utilise, leading it to preferentially burn them whenever available.

Ketogenic Eating

In contrast, a ketogenic diet adapts the body to using fat for energy, which is achieved by consuming a higher fat, moderate protein and limited carbohydrate diet.

A specific outcome of this diet is to limit the intake of carbohydrates, so the body does not have enough glucose for its metabolic needs. When this occurs (alongside consuming adequate protein), the body sources fats for fuel and converts them into compounds called ketones. It is ketones, instead of glucose, that the body then starts to use as its primary source of energy. This process is known as ketosis.

The ketogenic diet is quite different to a standard western diet, and different variations of the diet do exist. However, as shown in Figure 1 below, it is comprised of a specific balance of macronutrients, generally being:

50% of calories from high quality, unprocessed fats such as avocado, nuts, seeds, egg yolks, organic meat and coconut;

30% of calories from protein, such as fish, tofu/tempeh or organic animal protein; and

If you couple your ketogenic diet with a calorie deficit, the body will draw on your own fat stores for energy, resulting in a reduction in overall body fat.

Those who struggle to lose weight due to insulin resistance will also benefit from ketogenic eating, as ketones do not require insulin to create energy.

Athletes

As a body that has entered ketosis efficiently draws energy from ingested and stored fat, the ketogenic diet can provide a constant and stable source of energy. This offers an advantage over glucose-dependant metabolism, which eventually requires regular glucose intake to sustain intense exercise performance beyond two hours.

Individuals who prefer eating higher amounts of dietary fat;

Those who experience digestive issues with high carbohydrate diets; and

Individuals who respond poorly to low fat dieting.

Who might struggle with a ketogenic diet?

There are some individuals who may not easily adjust to a ketogenic diet due to conditions that limit the absorption of fats, or conversion of fats into energy. This may include individuals who experience:

Digestive upset when consuming fat containing meals;

Inborn mitochondrial conditions;

Recurrent pancreatitis; and

Gallstones or have had their gall bladder removed.

Is Keto Right for You?

Whether its weight loss or enhanced wellness, it’s worth talking to a healthcare Practitioner to see if a ketogenic diet will help you reach your health goals. As a bonus, working with a Practitioner will also greatly increase your ketogenic success, as they can help identify any barriers to successfully implementing the diet, and create strategies for you to overcome them.

Finally, as with any diet, it’s important to remember that each individual can respond uniquely, and that certain diets will suit some more than others. However, if you feel this diet is right for you, you could soon be joining the many that feel clearer, lighter and more energetic eating keto!